University of California - Davis, Yosemite Hall
University of California-Davis, Yosemite Hall | Davis, CA
DPR partnered with HKS Architects on the design-build delivery of Yosemite Hall, a 101,000-square-foot, four-story student housing building on the University of California, Davis campus. Located near the north campus entrance, the ground-up residence hall was designed as a replacement of Webster Hall, which was demolished as part of the project.
Yosemite Hall encompasses 371 beds in double and triple rooms, along with bathrooms, common rooms, residence assistant apartments, lounges, recreation rooms, administrative offices, community space, a community kitchen, computer center, maintenance shop and laundry facilities. Although originally planned to be a traditional wood frame structure, DPR proposed changing it to a light-gauge structural steel framing system. It would incorporate cold formed steel wall and floor panels that were prefabricated offsite by Digital Building Components (DBC), converting the building from a Type V to Type II.
Safety and Durability
The university readily agreed to the structural change, as it offered a number of advantages over the wood construction, such as improved building durability and occupant safety. Yosemite Hall represented DPR’s first largescale project utilizing DBC prefabricated systems to form the entire loadbearing cold-formed steel structure.
Yosemite Hall was completed in March 2019 following a 21-month construction schedule and began housing around 400 students that fall. The new, modern facility represents a key component in the university’s plan to grow its housing capacity to meet student needs over the next several years.
The
Challenges
The project’s prominent location in a dense area of campus with little to no lay-down area brought logistical challenges of construction around an active student population.
Photo: The project’s prominent location in a dense area of campus with little to no lay-down area brought additional challenges.
Yosemite Hall was DPR’s first largescale project to use DBC prefabricated systems to form the entire loadbearing cold-formed steel structure, as opposed to typical prefabricated components such as interior walls, panels and exterior paneling systems.
Photo: The entire loadbearing steel structure was prefabricated off site, a first for DPR.
The
Solutions
The DPR-led team arranged a plan to successfully deliver the fully prefabricated, light-gauge steel structure through collaboration and a solution-oriented approach.
Photo: The DPR-led team knew that successfully delivering this fully prefabricated, light-gauge steel structure would require a high degree of collaboration.
The
Results
DPR has other active projects on UC Davis's campus, including nearby Emerson Hall, a DBC-fabricated, light-gauge, steel-framed structure and a four-story, state-of-the-art Teaching and Learning Complex.
Photo: A communal kitchen inside of Yosemite Hall at UC Davis.
Successful application of the prefabricated steel structure launched DPR’s expansion into this new building type and helped the company win similar projects in several markets nationwide, including another major new residence hall project directly next door to Yosemite Hall, and similar projects in Washington, Texas and Arizona.
Photo: Successful application of the prefabricated steel structure launched DPR’s expansion into this new building type and helped the company win similar projects in several markets nationwide.
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